Travel documents of evacuated Jewish children
Kathrin Pierin of the Jewish Museum London tells Liz Palmer about a poignant and personal relic of the Kindertransport
Alittle under 80 years ago nearly 10,000 children left their homes and families in Germany and its occupied territories, for what they believed would be a temporary stay in the UK. The majority were never to return as their families did not survive the Holocaust and settled either here or in the USA. It’s hard to imagine what a terrifying ordeal this separation from home must have been.
This month, Kathrin Pierin, of the Jewish Museum London, tells us about one small exhibit that helps us understand a little more about the experience.
Which document have you chosen?
I have chosen a small hand-made linen pouch a bit larger than the size of a postcard. It contains six business cards with travelling instructions written on the back. These were made for 12-year-old Richard Kaufmann, originally from Karslruhe, who travelled on the Kindertransport from his aunt and uncle’s home in France to Britain, via Paris, Belgium and the Netherlands, in 1939.
The cards provided him with information about his journey, mentioned addresses and contained instructions on what to do upon arrival. There is also a family picture taken at the station.
What does it reveal about the lives of our ancestors?
This emotive object provides us with a sense of the worry that Richard’s aunt and uncle, and other Jewish people in the same situation, must have felt when sending him off alone at this tender age. The discrepancy between the specific instructions reminding Richard to eat and write a card home, and the fact that he was sent on this risky journey to a country where he would live with strangers, is a stark reminder of the great challenge these children faced – they had to grow up before their age.
One of the cards tells Richard what he will see on the various legs of his journey: “the beautiful Moseltal”, “a Jewish cemetery” and “the largest Champagne cellars in Mercier”. Was this an attempt to play down the danger of the undertaking and turn it into an adventure for their nephew, or just a way of maintaining a sense of normality in an abnormal situation?
Richard missed the train connection in Amsterdam but eventually made it to the ferry where his brother joined him. They arrived in the UK unharmed, however, he did not have an easy start in this country as he was blamed for a breakage at the house of his host family and was sent away to a boarding house as a consequence.
This small collection of objects contributes to our understanding of the enormous oppression of Jews in Germany after the Nazis had come to power in 1933. On 9 November 1938 the Nazis organised a particularly violent attack against Jews, synagogues and Jewish property across Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland, known as Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass), which made it clear to many that fleeing would be their only chance of survival.
In light of these events, the British government slightly relaxed their refugee policy and nearly 10,000 children from
The lovingly made document includes the note “Don’t forget: eat every hour!”
Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland, the majority Jewish, were allowed to come to Britain between December 1938 and 1940.
While this was a lucky escape for these children, it also broke up families and most of the children, like Richard, did not see their parents again. After escaping to France, his parents were deported east and perished in the Holocaust.
In addition to the central refugee story, these documents also tell us how long rail travel took between these places and what sort of historical
monuments were considered worth looking at during this particular journey. The photograph also gives clues about gender ideas and the fashion of the time.
Why did you choose this specific document or selection?
Over recent months we have read a lot about the plight of refugees from Syria and other countries in Asia and Africa. In the daily information flow it is all too easy for the refugees to become just another item on the news, a phenomenon that has seemingly little to do with ourselves. Yet, refugees are people like us, people who just want to go about their daily lives, but who get exposed to so much threat and violence that they prefer leaving their homes even at the risk of losing their lives and never seeing their loved ones again. Among today’s refugees there are many children travelling alone; their parents must have been desperate if they saw no other solution than to send them off on their own.
These lovingly made travel documents (including the note “Don’t forget: eat every hour!”) can’t tell us the whole story of Jewish refugees during the Nazi period, but they give a sense of the difficult situation European Jews found themselves in and why they looked for refuge elsewhere. While we can’t compare the historical and present situations exactly one to one, there are obvious parallels, and the historical case encourages us to look at the individual human and to try to understand the story behind the news item.
Tell us more about your collections
The Jewish Museum London has a world-renowned collection of Judaica; well-crafted and beautiful objects used for public and private worship. Our collection of paintings, prints and drawings, some of which are from the 17th century, depict well-known Jewish personalities or historically prominent Jewish trades such as peddling. The social history collection illustrates daily life through material relating to specific trades such as cabinet making and tailoring, costumes and pictures from the Yiddish theatre and many documents and photographs related to Jewish institutions or clubs, from friendly societies to trade unions. It covers people from this country and others, like Richard Kaufmann who came to Britain as migrants or refugees. A collection of uniforms, medals, photographs and documents tell the history of the contribution of British Jews to the Armed Forces.